Description
If you have ever been to a Taiwanese breakfast joint, you probably know the routine. First you order a bowl of either soy milk or tofu, hot or cold, sweetened or served with a dash of vinegar and a fluffy pile of pork "floss" that slightly resembles Sinaloan machaca. (If you are on the edge, go for the tofu rather than the soy milk - I don't pretend to be a connoisseur, but the latter is bland even by soy-milk standards.) Then get either the you tiao or one of the breads, a pastry or two if you're in the mood, or that niu ruo shao bing, a simmered-beef thing with pickled cabbage that ranks among the better sandwiches in town.
Are the pan-fried dumplings a bit dull, the soup dumplings a bit stodgy, and the texture of the noodles not quite up to the standards of the hand-pulled ones you can find within a few minutes' drive? Unfortunately so. As at Swingers or the Pancake House, breakfast is what you came to eat, even at 4 in the afternoon.
